美国国家公共电台 NPR An American And Her Filipina Translator Exhume A Massacre In 'Insurrecto'

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Gina Apostol's new novel, "Insurrecto," is about two women on a trip to make a film in the Philippines who wind up seeing different films in the same characters. Chiara Brasi is an American, a daughter of a filmmaker who once shot a Vietnam War epoch¹ - you may already be thinking Coppola - who wants to make her own film. She hires an interpreter named Magsalin, who takes her to the island of Samar and the town of Balangiga where Philippine rebels were massacred in a retaliation² for an attack on U.S. forces in 1901. Gina Apostol uses an array of literary and cinematic techniques - memoirs³, jump-cuts, close-ups and reveries - to set a story in Duterte's Philippines that shows us that though victors often write histories, survivors⁴ and artists can revise them. Gina Apostol won the PEN Open Book Award for her last novel, "Gun Dealer's Daughter," and she's won the Philippine National Book Award and joins us from New York. Thanks so much for being with us.

GINA APOSTOL: Thanks so much for having me. It's such a huge honor.

SIMON: So these two women look at so much of the same landscape and see different films, don't they?

APOSTOL: Yeah, yeah. I'm very interested in that concept of multiple ways of looking at things, you know, this notion that in all of us there are multiple identities, you know, and we don't recognize the simultaneity of them. I'm like I'm a mom, I'm a daughter, I'm a teacher, I'm a writer, I'm a Filipino, I'm an American. And I really like this kind of seeing things from various points of view.

SIMON: Chiara focuses on Cassandra Chase, a photographer - an American photographer, who shoots portraits of the U.S. military. Magsalin sees something more personal, doesn't she? A Caz, a Filipino schoolteacher who knew what is probably Chiara's father. Tell us about that.

APOSTOL: Well, what I wanted was a kind of confusion of their ways of looking at these matters because as a story - I mean, the story of the Filipino-American war, you know, you have that seeming binary⁵, the colonizer⁶ and the colonized⁷. But, for instance, myself as a Filipino, I recognize the colonizer in me. And I speak English. I mean, I grew up learning in English. And I thought it was very important also for the colonizer to have also - have that recognition of the voice of the colonized in it. I think it's important, for instance, for an American to recognize its multiple histories, you know, this history of wanting to be the liberator⁸ in the Spanish-American War period but also recognizing the inhumanity that came from that war. So there's this tension of the two.

SIMON: Tell us about Casiana Nacionales, the insurrecto...

APOSTOL: The insurrecto, yeah.

SIMON: ...For whom the book is named, a woman whom history barely knows.

APOSTOL: History barely knows. And I would say even when I went to Samar to ask about her, there was very little known about her. But I think the figure of Casiana Nacionales - I think she resolves that dilemma⁹ of multiple seeing because just because we need to see in multiple ways does not mean we don't take a side, that there's - that this confusion of empathy that ethics¹⁰ sometimes is problematic because, yes, as a writer, I empathize with my character, the U.S. soldier - Army soldier. I empathize with the white woman photographer. But I also recognize that for my novel, Casiano Nacionales is the heart of the story, that we need to in some ways side with her revolutionary rage because I think atrocity¹¹ happens - this war happened because of the inability of, let's say, the invaders¹², the U.S. Army soldier, the white woman photographer - all of whom I empathize with - could not imagine the agency and aspirations¹³ of Casiano Nacionales. So the way she's put into that story, which is through spirals, through layers and layers of narration¹⁴, I think is - was for me a way to resolve my own dilemma about empathy and ethics.

SIMON: I was expecting the novel to be dense¹⁵ and detailed¹⁶ and inspiring. I wasn't expecting it to be so funny and a lot about Elvis.

APOSTOL: Yeah, yeah. Because the thing about Elvis is that I - you know, I didn't like him because he was my mom's favorite. But it was only a few years ago that I realized that all these songs that my uncles when I was a kid - this was in the '70s - would sing for, like, long, long, long, guitar strumming fests were actually all Elvis songs. So I actually thought Elvis was Filipino (laughter) for a long time.

SIMON: You mean he wasn't?

APOSTOL: Yeah, I know. No, he's not. What? Anyway so I really started thinking about what does that mean that I think Elvis is in me also? You know, what does that mean about this history of colonization¹⁷? What does that mean about all of us that we're not just one thing? We're so many different things. Like, I have Frank Sinatra, I have Elvis, I have Virginia Woolf, I have Dante, I have also Balengiga. I have the, you know, Illuminado Lucente, the Waray writers, I have Jose Rizal. And just like - we're all so many things. And it was that Elvis recognition - I go, OK. So I put him in.

SIMON: You're a teacher there in New York. How does that fit into your writing life?

APOSTOL: It does fit in very - I mean, I just taught Frederick Douglass' "What To A Slave Is The Fourth Of July?" I just taught the Constitution to my little 15-year-olds. And I teach the Filipino-American War to my students because - the way I talk about it with my students, you hold these tensions in your country, and it is good for you. It is good for you to recognize the liberatory aspects of the saving principles, as Frederick Douglass called them, and it is good for you to recognize that there was inhumanity in our original Constitution, that there was a three-fifths clause, that there was a normalizing of genocide against Native Americans and to hold those together and to confront that daily - it's really very difficult - but to hold those tensions together is a way to be a healthy American. And I think that's why a book like "Insurrecto" would be useful because you can see all these different sides. And so it's a Filipino book, it's an American book and to recognize that these are all part of this nation.

SIMON: Gina Apostol - her latest novel, "Insurrecto" - thank you so much for being with us.

APOSTOL: Thank you so much. I'm hugely honored.

1 epoch   

n.(新)时代；历元

参考例句：

• The epoch of revolution creates great figures.革命时代造就伟大的人物。
• We're at the end of the historical epoch,and at the dawn of another.我们正处在一个历史时代的末期，另一个历史时代的开端。

2 retaliation   

n.报复，反击

参考例句：

• retaliation against UN workers 对联合国工作人员的报复
• He never said a single word in retaliation. 他从未说过一句反击的话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 memoirs   

n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数)

参考例句：

• Her memoirs were ghostwritten. 她的回忆录是由别人代写的。
• I watched a trailer for the screenplay of his memoirs. 我看过以他的回忆录改编成电影的预告片。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

5 binary   

adj.二，双；二进制的；n.双(体)；联星

参考例句：

• Computers operate using binary numbers.计算机运行运用二进位制。
• Let us try converting the number itself to binary.我们试一试，把这个数本身变成二进制数。

6 colonizer   

殖民者，殖民地开拓者，移民

参考例句：

• In the first few year, the colonizer find life difficult. 头几年里，殖民地开拓者觉得生活艰难。

7 colonized   

开拓殖民地，移民于殖民地( colonize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The area was colonized by the Vikings. 这一地区曾沦为维京人的殖民地。
• The British and French colonized the Americas. 英国人和法国人共同在美洲建立殖民地。

8 liberator   

解放者

参考例句：

• The best integrated turf quality was recorded in Ram I、Midnight、America、Connie、Liberator, which could be adopted in Shanxi. RamI、Midnight、America、Connie、Liberator综合质量表现均衡且分值较高，是山西省推广应用的重点品种。
• It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old. 这是一部新世界的发展史，是一部后浪推前浪的历史。

9 dilemma   

n.困境，进退两难的局面

参考例句：

• I am on the horns of a dilemma about the matter.这件事使我进退两难。
• He was thrown into a dilemma.他陷入困境。

10 ethics   

n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准

参考例句：

• The ethics of his profession don't permit him to do that.他的职业道德不允许他那样做。
• Personal ethics and professional ethics sometimes conflict.个人道德和职业道德有时会相互抵触。

11 atrocity   

n.残暴，暴行

参考例句：

• These people are guilty of acts of great atrocity.这些人犯有令人发指的暴行。
• I am shocked by the atrocity of this man's crimes.这个人行凶手段残忍狠毒使我震惊。

12 invaders   

入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They prepared to repel the invaders. 他们准备赶走侵略军。
• The family has traced its ancestry to the Norman invaders. 这个家族将自己的世系追溯到诺曼征服者。

13 aspirations   

强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音

参考例句：

• I didn't realize you had political aspirations. 我没有意识到你有政治上的抱负。
• The new treaty embodies the aspirations of most nonaligned countries. 新条约体现了大多数不结盟国家的愿望。

14 narration   

n.讲述，叙述；故事；记叙体

参考例句：

• The richness of his novel comes from his narration of it.他小说的丰富多采得益于他的叙述。
• Narration should become a basic approach to preschool education.叙事应是幼儿教育的基本途径。

15 dense   

a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的

参考例句：

• The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。
• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage. 小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。

16 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

17 colonization   

殖民地的开拓，殖民，殖民地化； 移殖

参考例句：

• Colonization took place during the Habsburg dynasty. 开拓殖民地在哈布斯堡王朝就进行过。
• These countries took part in the colonization of Africa. 这些国家参与非洲殖民地的开发。